23 Comments:

That second picture reminds me of the tour I took of what I am 99% sure is PU, given the color of your robes... The guide made sure to point out that the statue niches in the walls were empty because they were modeled after Oxford and Cambridge, where there had actually been statues in them that had gotten destroyed or defaced over the centuries. But PU was going to play it safe and just start out with the empty niches. It seemed at once ludicrously pompous and strikingly pragmatic.

I was glad my advisor showed up. He not only stood in for LL's advisor, but also revised my previous history with him at graduations. When I graduated from INRU, he wasn't there because one of his kids was graduating. Having him there for LL's was almost as good. Sort of a double level of surrogacy, you might say. Him for Fearsome Advisor, and LL's graduation for mine.

I didn't go to the graduation ceremony, else I might have seen you there–not that I know who you are, of course. Let's just say that I used to spend hours in the building surrounding that courtyard, so I recognized it instantly.

In any case, congratulations from one newly-minted INRU PhD to another.

Ah, the doctorate! Nice, eh? I have a photo of my advisor hooding me, but it is blurry and at a distance, and we both look like shit, even at a blurred distance. It does suck that they didn't show, but whatever. Maybe that was lucky, cause now you won't have a photo you can't throw away, but don't really want to keep.

Welcome to the family, the Manson Family LOL. Now you're one of us :-P

And what is up with that fountain? I don't remember that. Did some rich girl croak on a skiing trip to Norway so their family could get themselves a fountain?

Kermit: Yup. They've been telling a version of that story on the tour for at least 14 years.

Fuz: nice to meet you, sort of--it is indeed odd to wander around, at one's leisure & almost as a tourist, places that hold more stressful associations.

Oso: when I got up close to the fountain, I saw that it had a *very* old date on its side (somewhere in the university's first century), so it's clearly been around, although it couldn't have been in its current location (a courtyard of that building with the phone booths that look like confessionals). I'm pretty sure that the courtyard wasn't open & accessible when I was in my early undergrad years, however.

Also - re: advisors: at my PhD commencement - the ceremony was just for humanities PhDs - the essential message of the address was "However you feel about each other right now, you and your advisor will one day forgive one another and look back fondly on all this." It was just the right note to strike, and six years on it seems like it might possibly be true. (I had two advisors; the one who showed up for commencement beamed as if he hadn't been irritating the hell out of me for the last eighteen months; my more beloved, actually helpful and totally non-irritating advisor had decamped to INRU by that point and didn't come.)

LL, loved the photos. Thanks for sharing, however briefly. And congratulations on the official ceremony. I remain irritated at your advisor. If you want to go ahead and let go of your anger, feel free. Your loyal readers have got your back and we do not forget.

It was in part those "stressful associations" that helped make my decision to stay away from the ceremony. Certainly there were other reasons–my significant other would not have been able to make the journey to INRU with me, nor would my parents have been able to come for the ceremony. But the issue was more that I left [place redacted] not at all at peace with the closing of my long graduate career, and not merely for the reasons one would expect. I was not ready to return and confront INRU as an institution and a space where I once belonged, but no longer did.

In any case, this space is not to revisit my past, but to wish you the best on your future. So, again, my congratulations…or, as Oso Raro put it: ¡Felicidades!

No hooding, eh? You know, I think that may be the way to go, actually. "Hooding"--as a term and a concept--has always freaked me out a bit. In fact, I didn't attend my graduation and I don't think my advisor has fogiven me yet for denying him the opportunity to hood me. (*shudder* See? Didn't that just sound creepy?)

Congratulations Lecturess! In the old days the feminists used to say, "I am a woman giving birth to myself." So today you are a scholar giving birth to herself, and all of us if we could would hood you, and applaud your fortitude and grace. Who needs that advisor? You already have a rich community, and the world before you. Not to mention nice regalia!